Book Review: The Painted Table ~ The Review Stew

A product was given for review for my honest opinion. No other compensation was given.

About the book:

A beautiful heirloom ingrained with family memory has become a totem of a life Saffee would rather forget---a childhood disrupted by her mother's mental illness.

Saffee does not want the table. By the time she inherits the object of her mother's obsession, the surface is thick with haphazard layers of paint, and heavy with unsettling memories.

After a childhood spent watching her mother slide steadily into insanity, painting and re-painting the ancient table, Saffee has come to fear that seeds of psychosis may lie dormant within her. But as an adult with a family of her own, Saffee must confront her mother's torment if she wants to defend herself against it.

Traversing four generations over the course of a century, The Painted Table is an epic portrait of inherited memory, proclivity, and guilt. It is a sprawling narrative affirmation that a family artifact---like a family member---can bear the marks of one's entire past . . . as well as intimations of one's redemption.

About the author:

Suzanne Field, a graduate of the University of Minnesota, has taught English as a Second Language in China, Ukraine, and Hawaii. She has also been a magazine editor and home-school teacher. She and her husband have five children and divide their time between Kansas and Hawaii where she is a tutor and mentor.

Learn more about Suzanne at: https://www.facebook.com/SuzanneFieldThePaintedTable

My Opinion

This book is definitely a different genre and mood than what I usually enjoy but it definitely was captivating once I got into the middle of the book. It was a little slow and a little confusing at first but it definitely made an impression on me.

The book was really interesting being based around a dining room table that was passed down through generations of a family and became a source of pain, memories and history that I don't think the original builders hadn't imagined or intended!

Suzanne Field wrote with vividness and pain that I could feel with every chapter but I loved the end of the story where Saffee confronts her fear and pain and embraces the table for all it was meant to be!

Buy It: You can purchase The Painted Table for $12.03 from Amazon.com.

Suzanne Field is celebrating her novel, The Painted Table, with a beautiful hand-painted table giveaway!

One winner will receive:

A beautiful hand-painted table (see it here: http://etsy.me/15L90cD)
The Painted Table by Suzanne Field

Enter today by clicking one of the icons below. But hurry, the giveaway ends on January 18th. Winner will be announced January 20th on Thomas Nelson's Facebook Page.